Author of book about forced US deportations dies

LONG BEACH, Calif. 
Raymond Rodriguez, who wrote about 1 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans who were forced out of the United States in the 1930s, has died. He was 87.

His daughter, C. J. Crockett, tells the Los Angeles Times (
http://lat.ms/15n9NmE
) that Rodriguez died June 24 at his Long Beach home.

In 1995, he and Francisco Balderrama wrote "Decade of Betrayal," a social history about forced deportations during America's Great Depression. They found that 60 percent of those expelled were U.S. citizens and concluded the deportees were scapegoats for U.S. economic woes.

The book sparked legislative hearings and formal apologies from the Los Angeles County officials and the state of California.

Rodriguez also was a former Long Beach City College administrator and a columnist for the Long Beach Press-Telegram.